I’m out of time, but here’s two good videos. If the language is bothering folks, please let me know and I’ll stop posting this stuff, but this is too good. A really radical, out n’ proud lesbian feminist in Canada not only wore the hijab in a Canadian mosque but also agreed to enter through a back door – as fitting for a woman – and then sat in a back corner, because everyone knows God finds the sight of women horribly offensive, so offensive that their mere presence somehow magically invalidates any prayers offered:

Moronic PM Justin Trudeau was asked about this, and all he could do was blather meaningless platitudes that said absolutely nothing other than the tired leftist mantra, “diversity is our greatest source of strength” (which has, BTW, never even been remotely proven, or even grounds established upon which the claim could be based):

His response reminded me of this old Monty Python sketch, especially at 7:30 (WordPress refuses to let me start a video at a particular time):

Citing the very problems they and their leftist-modernist ideology have created by gutting the Faith of any transcendence and meaning, leader of the modernist faction Cardinal Karl Reinhard Marx declares that due to the absence of priests (and because this is what he and his cohort have always sought), German bishops will soon choose to make recourse to lay-run and administered parishes, while also hinting they plan on moving ahead with married priests, which means the Vatican will instantly follow. The Vatican will follow, because, after all, the multi-billion dollar a year warchest the German bishops pilfer from mostly former Catholics is a source of funding too lucrative to ignore, and so whatever the sons of Luther German bishops want, the German bishops get:

German Cardinal Reinhard Marx plans to allow lay people in his archdiocese to run parishes in response to the priest shortage there and is also open to the possibility of married priests.

Cardinal Marx said parishes in the Archdiocese of Munich will have to be reorganized and current requirements for admission to the priesthood be reconsidered. The archdiocese has a Catholic population of more than 1.7 million but just one candidate for the priesthood this year. [Because the same leftist modernist ideology one can pursue while fully out in the world is a poor encouragement for men to take on a life of sacrifice and self-denial in the priesthood, at least until all the remaining disciplines and doctrines are jettisoned, and the former Catholic priesthood is reduced to a pathetic protestant shadow of its former self.]

“We are experiencing a great upheaval in the Church at the moment,” the cardinal said……… [As he bellowed an evil laugh and rubbed his fat hands with glee]

………Cardinal Marx said all of the possibilities were not yet thought through. He cited the “priesthood of all the faithful” and referenced the Second Vatican Council (Chapter 2, Lumen Gentium: “the common priesthood of the faithful and the ministerial or hierarchical priesthood are nonetheless interrelated”)………[I know some folks are uncomfortable with categorical statements regarding problems/errors/even worse within the Vatican II documents, but this kind of dangerously nebulous statement, left deliberately open to interpretation, was exactly the kind of thing that many opponents of the radical changes of Vatican II warned of, both at the time, and since. This kind of statement was plainly an entre to desacralizing the priesthood and replacing it with some proto-Calvinist “presbyterial” construct. And now we see exactly what was warned against playing out.]

The permanent council of the German Bishops’ Conference issued a formal statement in February approving access to Communion for Catholics living in adulterous unions without abstaining from sexual intercourse. The statement formalized the German Church’s dissent from Catholic teaching on Communion, Penance and marriage. [They also owned a major share of Germany’s largest porn publisher, and who knows, may well be among the nation’s most vigorous consumers of pornography.]

In response to the hotly contested question of Communion for Catholics living in objective sin during the two recent Synods on the Family, Cardinal Marx unequivocally stated that Germany would not be bound by the dictates of Church leadership. [not that it mattered, they bent the Church leadership to their whim. They didn’t have to try very hard with Francis, but I’m sure the carrot of access to those billions they have stockpiled didn’t hurt.]

This post, and the previous one, seem appropriate content for reflection during this Novena of Our Lady of Sorrows. I do not know if there has ever been a darker, more sorrowful time in the entire history of the Church. Our Mother’s heart must be breaking, especially to see those men given such enormous graces totally rejecting any conversion and repentance in pursuit of their diabolical worldly agenda. I do not think there has ever been such a mass betrayal by the Church leaders against their duty in the entire history of the Church. Maybe during the Arian heresy, but those days were much more innocent, and many of those who glommed onto the heresy did not know what they were doing. These men have 2000 years of Doctrine and Tradition to inform them, but they reject it out of hand, but somewhat in their defense were carefully taught to do just that.

Then again, millions of others were also formed in leftism/modernism and somehow managed to come to find, practice, and adore the authentic faith. These men have had plentiful opportunities to do the same, it is a certitude they have been reached out to by faithful souls too many times to count, and yet they have rejected the counsel and remonstrances they have received every. single. time.

I do pity these poor lost destructive men. Not for the devastation they are inflicting on the Church and souls, but because they, too, will eventually be judged, and what a judgment they will face. I imagine they will be quite shocked to find that God is indeed that God exactly described in that “bad old Faith” they manifestly reject. By then it will be far too late. They will have deserved their fate.

But mostly I pity the tens if not hundreds of millions of souls who face eternal perdition because they have fallen for the lies these men have peddled for generations now. That’s the real tragedy in all this, the Church can always be restored, there can always be some great future Saints who will guide the Church back to sanity and sanctity, but the those who die holding these heresies and conducting their lives in manifestly immoral manner, their fate is fixed. There is no hope of restoration or “renewal” for them. And it is they who, finding many bishops and priests sharing their eternal destiny, will most torture these prelates with constant chastisements and rebukes.

So much to pray for, but men who have adamantly refused Grace for decades are very, very hard to reach. Of course, all things are possible with God.

Back in 1560, when heresy was running wild throughout Europe and the glorious construct known as Christendom was being deliberately and permanently deconstructed by maliciously motivated, self-interested men, His Catholic Majesty Philip II of Spain visited the University of Louvain, to ascertain the degree of orthodoxy being preached and taught there.

So impressed was the great Catholic monarch with what he found at Louvain, he instantly increased the salaries of all professors and teachers there by 50%. Louvain was then, a very few exceptions aside, a true bastion of Catholic orthodoxy.

But that was then, and this is now. The formerly Catholic University of Louvain, which as recently as 80 years ago was turning out such men as Archbishop Fulton Sheen, has since the final revolution within and against the Church in the mid-20th century become a paragon of vice, error, iniquity, and heresy.

In fact, when their administration attacks a lecturer for handing out pamphlets calling abortion what it is – murder – and then declares abortion a “fundamental right,” we have passed beyond heresy and straight into the diabolical, wherein this former redoubt of Catholicism could now very well be appropriately termed the Satanic University of Louvain.

Just more fruit from the most disastrous Council in the history of the Church, Vatican II:

A junior lecturer at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium is facing backlash from university officials because he distributed a 15-page document with philosophical arguments for calling abortion “murder” to about 100 first-year engineering students.

Stéphane Mercier has not been sanctioned yet, but the authorities declared in a statement on the university’s website that they are assessing the status of his text to determine whether it was actually used as part of his philosophy course. Whether that proves to be the case or not, UCL has dissociated itself from Mercier’s stance against abortion, calling it “contrary to its values.”…….[Well that tells us all we need to know about Louvain, doesn’t it? Being Catholic is contrary to their values. Thanks for clarifying that, we’ll keep that in mind going forward]

……..Tania van Hemelryck, the special adviser to the university president on gender politics, spoke to Belgian television on behalf of the university, saying: “The authorities want to find out the exact status of the text and how it was used during this course, bearing in mind that in any case UCL defends the fundamental right to abortion, and particularly women’s right to choose.”………

………The official statement published by UCL on its website says much the same thing:

“Whatever the outcome of the inquiry, the right to abortion is enshrined in Belgian law and the note that was brought to the attention of UCL is at odds with the values upheld by the university. Conveying standpoints that contradict these values in the framework of a teaching course is unacceptable.”…….

……….And here are the words that provoked media hysteria in Belgium and beyond: “The truth is that abortion is the murder of an innocent person. It is even a particularly loathsome murder, because the innocent in question is defenseless. (…) Nowadays we hear some people saying for example that at a personal level they condemn abortion as being immoral, but that it would never occur to them to make it illegal. Such reasoning is astonishingly absurd, if one bothers to think about it. (…) Just imagine that the same individual should declare that on a personal level, he finds rape really immoral, but that ‘in order to respect every person’s liberty’ (except perhaps that of the victim) it should not on that account be made illegal. Absurd, obviously! Well, if abortion is murder, as we have said, is it not more serious, even, than rape? Rape is immoral, and thankfully it is also illegal. Should not abortion, which is even more immoral, even more so be illegal?” [Good argument. One that cannot be rebutted logically, but only dishonestly framed to elicit an emotional response, so you get what follows……….]

The headlines in Belgium indignantly screamed: “A lecturer at UCL considers abortion to be worse than rape!”

Well guess what? So do I, and so do a whole lot of people who are not so morally enervated and hopelessly diabolically narcissistic that they have not turned logic, reason, and decency upside down to convince themselves that killing 50+ million babies a year worldwide is somehow a morally neutral act.

Now, the primary oversight for the doctrinal/theological content taught at Louvain falls on the Archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels. The current Archbishop is Josef De Kesel, a screaming leftist and protege of that scandalous protector and promoter of boy rapists, Cardinal Godfried Daneels. Who, quite importantly, is also one of the ringleaders of the “St. Gallen Group” that illicitly collaborated to elect Jorge Bergoglio as Bishop of Rome.

It is thus all of a piece, the remaking of the Church into an ineffectual society co-opted by the corporatist forces of transnational globalism as a kind of worldly indifferentist boring pointless NGO continues apace. Oh, it’s wonderful for the connected bishops and priests at the top who obey the diktat of the forces of the world and its master, they get to live an exquisite existence with the only cost being the souls that continue to fall into hell in a torrential blizzard never seen since the Church first came into being. Heck they don’t believe in any of that hoary old stuff anyway, so what’s to lose for them, right? Billions of corrupt corporate dollars and being able to pretend you move with the highest levels of global leadership (though they loathe and snicker at you behind your back), for the cost of a stupid made up eastern cult that was just a slight derivative of others pre-existing for thousands of years – what’s to choose?!?

Unless of course they be wrong, and God and Christ be true, then they are among the men to be most reviled and pitied in all history, right up there with Simon Magus, Luther, Photius, Calvin, Zwinglii, Beza, and all the rest.

Enjoy your new muslim overlords, Europe, you richly deserve them. Guess what, they’ll make abortion so illegal it will beggar the imagination, but you don’t care, because your leftism has always been about hatred of God and His Church. So long as that goal is achieved, you care not a whit for what follows, even if it be hell (which, it will be, figuratively and literally).

Here’s your daily grist for the outrage mill, a silly feminist no one has ever heard of has decided it is an affront to women’s progress for women to decide to be stay at home moms, and thus to satisfy her outrage being a stay at home mom must be made illegal, because otherwise her dreams of feminist dominance of a matriarchal society will never be realized, or something. She hinges her demand on a report generated by a UN-affiliated leftist-dominated economic development organization (the OECD), which, surprise!, found little worth in women staying at home and determined that women would be better off out there earning wages that could then be confiscated as taxes for the endless yawning maw of government (and thus, themselves). Yes that’s a bit simplistic but once again the uniworld government types sacrificing the good of children on the altar of the almighty state is just a bit too obvious to ignore:

“One of the areas of greatest untapped potential in the Australian labour force is inactive and/or part-time working women, especially those with children,’’ concluded the landmark study. “There are potentially large losses to the economy when women stay at home or work short part-time hours.’’….. [First of all, so what? Unless one is enthrall of a marxist-derived materialist ideology, which holds the material as the highest good, a mom staying home through all ages of a child’s development to raise them and inculcate in them morals and values is one of the best possible uses of a woman’s time from even a naturalist perspective. In a Christian worldview, barring some serious need, it is THE best possible role for a mom. But see, that’s the point, this is about making everyone conform to this marxist materialists’ ideology.]

Follows some obvious throwaway language about the importance of kids, but then we get to the point, which obliterates all the obfuscating language that came before:

……Rather than wail about the supposed liberation in a woman’s right to choose to shun paid employment, we should make it a legal requirement that all parents of children of school-age or older are gainfully employed.…….[Upon pain of what? Huge fines? Denial of “benefits,” which are most often just a refund on money already paid? Prison? So a woman has a fundamental, unalienable, unchallengeable right to murder her own child at taxpayer expense, but does not have a right not to work?!? Taken together, these reveal a breathtaking anti-child bias that goes beyond bordering on misopedia.]

…….The double standards are even greater for stay-at-home mums, with governments of all persuasions traditionally wary to tackle the unfair tax concessions enjoyed by one-income households for fear of inciting voting fury…….. [Oh, so this is really about jealousy? You belong to a two-income earner tax bracket and resent the “lower” taxes paid by those single earner families? So in your envious rage you are completely willing to injure the good of children]

……..But it’s time for a serious rethink of this kid-glove approach to women of child-bearing and child-rearing age. Holding us less accountable when it comes to our employment responsibilities is not doing anyone any favours. Not children, not fathers, not bosses — and certainly not women. [Oh really? And on what basis do you make that dramatic claim?]

Only when the female half of the population is expected to hold down a job and earn money to pay the bills in the same way that men are routinely expected to do will we see things change for the better for either gender. [What?!? How?!? By fulfilling the demands of your demented ideology by forcing everyone to conform to them, and thus confirm their “truth” in your addled mind? By helping you overcome your bad feelz for choosing to work instead of raise your own kids, or favoring career to the extent you never had any?]

Only when it becomes the norm for all families to have both parents in paid employment, and sharing the stress of the work-home juggle, will we finally have a serious conversation about how to achieve a more balanced modern workplace. [Oh, so now we’re back to fulfilling feminist ideological items. But really, she’s all over the map. This is a rant, not a cogent argument.]

Only when the tiresome and completely unfounded claim that “feminism is about choice” is dead and buried (it’s not about choice, it’s about equality) will we consign restrictive gender stereotypes to history. [So it’s all about demanding reality conform to a wholly unrealistic and unobtainable ideology. Like all forms of leftism.]

So long as we as a nation [Australia] cling to the lie that only a stay-at-home mum is best placed to assume the responsibilities of caregiver then working fathers will continue to feel insecure about stepping off the corporate treadmill to spend more time with their children.

That is nothing but a rhetorical flourish intended to make her feminist demands appear to have benefits for all and not just the feminist cohort. But it’s manifestly easy to prove feminists don’t give a damn about the good of men or children, abortion (and the above) prove the latter, and their reflexive invective against men prove the former.

Sargon of Akkad – who is a liberal, but an anti-leftist – takes this op-ed and other matters apart from a different perspective in the video below. One really good point is the totalitarian ethos that suffuses this woman’s rant, which is of course a central part of the leftist ideology – the good of the state trumps the needs or wants of the individual. Subsequently he covers the growing tendency among the Black Lives Matters and others in the race-baiting industry to parse themselves by skin color. That is to say, darker blacks are higher on the victimhood pyramid and thus more virtuous and enjoying more (wholly unearned) moral standing than lighter skinned ones. This was inevitable, and will hopefully lead to the fracturing and neutering of this movement.

Strong language warning.

Is it just me, or do (radical?) feminists tip their hand a bit too much about their coolness – to say the least – towards children?

This is the Saint Benedict Center in New Hampshire, the one with the catholicism.org website. Sensus Fidelium added the following description on Youtube:

On October 22, 2016 the Brothers and Sisters from Saint Benedict Center, with some students and volunteers, went to The Arbors of Bedford, an Assisted Living Facility in New Hampshire, to sing and play for the residents. Here is our recording of William Byrd’s Ave Verum.

Most holy and afflicted Virgin, Queen of Martyrs, you stood beneath the cross, witnessing the agony of your dying Son.
Look with a mother’s tenderness and pity on me, who kneel before you. I venerate your sorrows and I place my requests
with filial confidence in the sanctuary of your wounded heart.

Present them, I beseech you, on my behalf to Jesus Christ, through the merits of His own most sacred passion and death, together with your sufferings at the foot of the cross. Through the united efficacy of both, obtain the granting of my petition.To whom shall I have recourse in my wants and miseries if not to you, Mother of Mercy? You have drunk so deeply of the chalice of your Son, you can compassionate our sorrows.

Holy Mother, your soul was pierced by a sword of sorrow at the sight of the passion of your divine Son. Intercede for me
and obtain for me from our Lord {mention your petition}, if it be for His honor and glory, and for my good. Amen.

LET US PRAY
Pour forth, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy grace into our hearts; that, we to whom the Incarnation of Christ, Thy Son, was made known by the message of an Angel, may by His Passion and Cross, be brought to the glory of His Resurrection. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

You can also pray the Litany of Our Lady of Seven Sorrows:

Lord, have mercy on us
Christ have mercy on us
Lord have mercy on us
Christ hear us
Christ graciously hear us

God, the Father of heaven
Have mercy on us
God the Son, Redeemer of the world
Have mercy on us
God the Holy Ghost
Have mercy on us

Holy Mary, Mother of God pray for us
Holy Virgin of virgins pray for us
Mother of the Crucified pray for us
Sorrowful Mother pray for us
Mournful Mother pray for us

Sighing Mother pray for us
Afflicted Mother pray for us
Forsaken Mother pray for us
Desolate Mother pray for us
Mother most sad pray for us

Mother set around with anguish pray for us
Mother overwhelmed by grief pray for us
Mother transfixed by a sword pray for us
Mother crucified in thy heart pray for us
Mother bereaved of thy Son pray for us

Sighing Dove pray for us
Mother of Dolors pray for us
Fount of tears pray for us
Sea of bitterness pray for us
Field of tribulation pray for us

Mass of suffering pray for us
Mirror of patience pray for us
Rock of constancy pray for us
Remedy in perplexity pray for us
Joy of the afflicted pray for us

Ark of the desolate pray for us
Refuge of the abandoned pray for us
Shield of the oppressed pray for us
Conqueror of the incredulous pray for us
Solace of the wretched pray for us

Medicine of the sick pray for us
Help of the faint pray for us
Strength of the weak pray for us
Protectress of those who fight pray for us
Haven of the shipwrecked pray for us

Calmer of tempests pray for us
Companion of the sorrowful pray for us
Retreat of those who groan pray for us
Terror of the treacherous pray for us
Standard-bearer of the Martyrs pray for us

Treasure of the Faithful pray for us
Light of Confessors pray for us
Pearl of Virgins pray for us
Comfort of Widows pray for us
Joy of all Saints pray for us

Queen of thy Servants pray for us
Holy Mary, who alone art unexampled pray for us.

Pray for us, most Sorrowful Virgin That we may be made
worthy of the promises of Christ

O God, in whose Passion, according to the prophecy of
Simeon, a sword of grief pierced through the most sweet
soul of Thy glorious Blessed Virgin Mother Mary, grant
that we, who celebrate the memory of her Seven Sorrows,
may obtain the happy effect of Thy Passion, Who lives
and reigns world without end. Amen

And this being California, the likelihood of CMP being found guilty of at least one of these “throw ’em at the wall and see if they stick” charges is disturbingly probable. At the very least, the goal of the prosecution – to defend Planned Murderhood by ruining the reputations of those who publicly expose them for the evil purveyors of baby-killing they are – will be achieved whether a conviction occurs or not. Forever anon, whenever CMP or David Daleiden is mentioned in the liberal/leftist press, there will surely be a little message about how they have faced numerous criminal charges for their activities, which message will be designed to discredit them and by extension the entire pro-life movement.

On Tuesday, the state of California charged David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt of the Center for Medical Progress on 15 felony counts over their undercover reporting regarding Planned Parenthood. In 2015, Daleiden and Merritt released video showing high-ranking Planned Parenthood members joking about selling baby body parts for market rates and picking through baby body parts in order to demonstrate which sorts of body parts were available for sale for medical research, as well as talking about the best methods of abortion for procuring those baby body parts. The California Department of Justice, under the auspices of now-Senator Kamala Harris, raided Daleiden’s home for footage in April 2016; last year, the state of Texas pursued charges against Daleiden and Merritt, but those charges were thrown out. [With prejudice. It was a humiliating defeat for the Harris County DA (a known Planned Butcherhood supporter and collaborator) and the grand jury that made the indictment. But expect a different outcome in just about any court in California, save maybe for Orange County or some rural county in the north, but I’m sure the state will prevent the trial from being held in such reasonable environs]

So, here’s the question: where’s the media, rushing to the defense of these undercover journalists?

They’re silent. Or they’re celebrating, since they think that Daleiden and Merritt were evil conservatives out to target the saints at Planned Parenthood. They buy the lie that the tapes were deceptively edited so as to implicate Planned Parenthood in nefarious activity – but the tapes show precisely what the tapes show.

Shapiro then goes on to show important court precedents regarding the law under which CMP is being charged – a CA law that bars taping of PRIVATE conversations between two individuals unless consent is obtained from both parties. But as Shapiro notes, a conversation in a public place like a restaurant is a dubious grounds for a private conversation, and even precedents from the crazy 9th Circus Court have found that journalists have a right to tape conversations when engaged in investigative journalism. I expect the prosecutors to try to establish that CMP were not real journalists and thus do not fall under this broader interpretation.

Another note via Ace of Spades, a Chicago-area TV station secretly recorded undercover footage of alleged animal cruelty at a poultry farm in California – is there any likelihood at all that this ABC affiliate will be prosecuted? Absolutely none.

Just another way that the Left is trying to create a tiered standard of citizenship in this country, with leftists at the top enjoying special privileges and immunities, and conservatives at the bottom facing not only the full force of the law but vicious interpretations of same simply because of their beliefs. More and more in this country, the ability to live free from tyrannical persecution from the government depends very much on where you live and what you believe. And this trend is growing. I cannot see how this can persist for much longer without some kind of rupture.

I was, however, somewhat heartened to see the video below. Some self-described “antifa (anti-fascist)” protesters used fascist techniques to try to stop a pro-Trump rally in Huntington Beach Saturday. The left were vastly outnumbered, and when they started hitting conservatives and spraying women with pepper spray, things did not go well for them (language warning, this was a heated situation and people did not always maintain their cool):

The good news is that in a dicey legal situation like this none of the Trump supporters were arrested but 4 “antifas” face felony counts. At least until it becomes known they are the sons of “important” college professors or judges or left-wing activists and then of course the charges will be quietly dismissed. But at least they may get to sweat for a while.

Consider yourself lucky, I’m at home. This may be a lazy Flightline Friday, but it’s better than nothing.

Two videos showing some very early Tomcat footage. Some of the earliest Tomcats built are in the first vid, the first 30 or so ships built had only the ALQ-100 ECM antenna under the forward fuselage where later appeared first an IR sensor, then an electro-optical telescopic camera, and finally both. The development of the F-14’s “chin” is shown below:

The first video is a Northrop production hyping their involvement in TOPGUN:

The second is from Grumman and is an obvious – but very early – PR effort for the F-14:

The kids are home, so that’s all you get. Whether it’s better than nothing is wholly debatable, but you get what you pay for………

Some interesting considerations below, where a self-described long-time progressive admits to being shocked, flustered, terrified, and offended at the presence of an obvious male in the women’s public restroom at Disneyland in Southern California. There are a whole lot of revelations below – paralyzing fear of being called out as politically incorrect and thus having one’s credibility destroyed in the secular pagan milieu, an incoherent feeling of being violated but an inability to do anything about it, and a demand that someone must fix the situation that goes along with a steadfast refusal to take personal action to help bring that fix about.

In short, it’s a pretty good summation of where we are as a culture, with the demands of the leftist extremists becoming more and more irrational, more and more invasive every day, and yet a sense that we are somehow powerless to stop this advance. But all it takes is will, the will to act, the will to be slimed by leftist activists on Twitter and other social media and not giving a damned what they say. That is, of course, easy to say, when one recognizes that even one’s professional standing and job could be permanently ruined by one act of moral bravery. Nevertheless, we eventually must fight, as the cost of delay will be much greater penalties in future if we don’t act now:

I was off to the side waiting with the two boys, when I noticed a man walk into the restroom…He took a few more steps, at which point he would’ve definitely noticed all the women lined up and still kept walking. My next thought was, “Maybe he’s looking for his wife…or child and they’ve been in here a while.” But he didn’t call out any names or look around. He just stood off to the side and leaned up against the wall. At this point I’m like, “…Am I the only one seeing this?” I surveyed the room and saw roughly 12 women, children in tow…staring at him with the exact same look on their faces. Everyone was visibly uncomfortable. We were all trading looks and motioning our eyes over to him…like “what is he doing in here?” Yet every single one of us was silent. And this is the reason I wrote this blog.

We had been culturally bullied into silenced. Women were mid-changing their baby’s diapers on the changing tables and I could see them shifting to block his view. But they remained silent. I stayed silent. We all did. Every woman who exited a stall and immediately zeroed right in on him…said nothing. And why? B/c I…and I’m sure all the others were scared of that “what if”. What if I say something and he says he “identifies as a woman” and then I come off as the intolerant ass… at the happiest place on earth? So we all stood there, shifting in our uncomfortableness…trading looks. I saw two women leave the line with their children. Still nothing was said. An older lady said to me outloud, “What is he doing in here?” I’m ashamed to admit I silently shrugged and mouthed, “I don’t know.” She immediately walked out…from a bathroom she had every right to use without fear.

And let me be clear, my problem wasn’t JUST that there was a man in the restroom. Its that he wasn’t even peeing, washing his hands or doing anything else that you’d do in a restroom. He was just standing off to the side looking smug…untouchable… doing absolutely nothing. He had to of noticed that every woman in the long line was staring at him. He didn’t care. He then did a lap around the restroom walking by all the stalls. You know, the stalls that have 1 inch gaps by all the doors hinges so you can most definitely see everyone…

So yes… there were women and small children using the restroom and this man was walking around knowing no one would say anything. So here I am…writing this blog, because honestly I need answers. We can’t leave this situation ambiguous any more. The gender debate needs to be addressed… and quickly. There have to be guidelines. It can’t just be a feeling… this notion that we’re shamed into silence b/c we might offend someone, has gone too far.

There was a man who felt entitled to be in the woman restroom, because he knew no one would say anything. There were 20-25 people by the time I left, who were scared and uncomfortable by his ominous presence. And the only thing stopping us, was our fear of political correctness and that the media has told us we don’t know what gender is anymore. I never want to be in the position again. I’m not asking for permission to tell transgender people to get out my bathroom. I need to know it’s ok to tell a man, who looks like a man, to get…out. Gender just can’t be a feeling. There has to be science to it. DNA, genitals, amount of Sephora make up on your face, pick your poison, but as a very progressive woman…I’m sorry it can’t just be a feeling when there’s but a mere suggestion of a door with a peep hole separating your eyes from my…or my children’s genitals.

All of which, fine. I feel your pain. There is even a certain sense of I told you so.

But the title of the post was actually a tongue in cheek joke – progressives like this will never reach their limit. They (or the vast majority, anyway) are the problem. They always kowtow to whatever the more radical fringes of the Left demands of them. And they will submit this time, and channel their impotent rage onto more culturally approved targets, like Donald Trump, white males, and conservatives, generally. Somehow this will all wind up being our fault.

Of course, there are exceptions. Sometimes it is moments like those above that start a person traveling on the path from former progressive to solid conservative.

Most importantly, the “lesson” I’m trying to convey is that if we want this to stop, it’s going to be up to us and like-minded individuals to start calling these jackholes out when they try to invade the private space of the opposite sex. Don’t let them get away with it, but know you will probably wind up being the one being blamed and even victimized if you do call them to account for their perversion and effrontery. But if we want this culture, rapidly descending into a literal hell, to change, we’re going to have to be willing to suffer for it. Pay me now or pay me later, the price will only go up if we delay, when we are finally to pushed to such extremes that we have no choice but to fight back and where far weightier things – the ability to have Mass said publicly, the ability to raise your kids in the Faith – are at stake.

Of course this is just one of a thousand and more areas where pushback is needed. That’s part of the Left’s strategy, using full time paid activists they advance on a hundred fronts simultaneously, finally wearing out the outmanned and out-funded opposition. We all have to pick our battles. But maybe if you are confronted with a bearded dude in a women’s bathroom, don’t just silently fume, but wack him over the head with your purse (which should always have a nice, heavy breviary in it). Or at least scream and shout and tell him what a sicko perverted freak he is.

There were a range of options of what might come out of my son’s follow-up MRI for the brain tumor discovered after he had a massive seizure 6 weeks ago, and aside from a total miracle (the tumor being completely gone) we got about the best possible option – the tumor is smaller and certainly appears both benign and stable. The shrinkage was probably due to swelling associated with the original seizure going away, but that means this tumor isn’t aggressive and isn’t growing at any appreciable rate.

So now we’ll just keep on keepin’ on, my son will get MRIs at three month intervals now and he’ll continue on the Keppra anti-seizure medication. He’s been doing awesome, his reading has gotten at least back to baseline and in fact is probably surpassed where he was before the seizure. It was a blessed day all around. I thank all of you so much for your prayers and ask if you would continue them, since this is still a serious situation and eventual surgery remains a strong possibility. But the longer that can be put off the better, and if prayer we hope it will never be needed.

Thank you all again, from the bottom of my heart, from a terrible shock and of course worry this has turned out just about as best as could have been imagined. And we of course thank God that He has seen fit to insure that my son is at least stable and that his health can be pretty easily managed so we may – I pray – enjoy our time together for many years to come.